samba - Dec 2003 - Samba spawning its own process ?

Hello list users,

I have a strange issue : 

When I start samba, all is going well : 

# ps afx | more
...
  983 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/nmbd -D
  985 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/smbd -D

But after waiting for several minutes, smbd starts again and I get a second
process for smbd -D.

This makes the (only) windows 2k workstation a bit confused and it cannot
print anymore.

Do you have an idea of what this means ?

Thanks for the help

Emmanuel